On January 12, 2015, President Barack Obama unveiled a series of comprehensive proposals aimed at protecting Americans’ personal and financial information, combating online fraud, and safeguarding digital privacy. As part of his speech at the Federal Trade Commission, President Obama highlighted certain initiatives related to student privacy that he will discuss in greater detail at […]
Legislation
New Jersey Enacts Health Information Encryption Requirement
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has signed a new law requiring health insurance companies to protect client health information by encrypting the data. The law applies to any insurance company, health service corporation, hospital service corporation, medical service corporation, or health maintenance organization authorized to issue health benefits plans in New Jersey. These entities must take […]
New California Law Expands Data Security Requirements, SSN Protections and Breach Notification Obligations
On September 30, 2014, the Governor of California signed Assembly Bill 1710, which made three small but important changes to the state’s privacy laws. The bill: (1) amended California’s breach notification law to require that the notifying entities offer identity theft protection services to affected individuals in certain cases; (2) required California businesses that “maintain” […]
HIPAA Audit Program Phase 2: Delayed
A representative of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has recently revealed that OCR has delayed the start of phase 2 of its HIPAA Audit Program – and has revised its plans for phase 2. Previous Plans for Phase 2 Earlier this year, OCR had announced that phase […]
Delaware Passes Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets and Digital Accounts Act
On August 12, Delaware Governor Jack Markell enacted the nation’s first law that covers access to digital accounts of the deceased. The Delaware statute, which is modeled after the Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, gives the deceased’s executors, or fiduciaries, “control over any and all rights in digital assets and digital accounts of […]